


A Turnip Shaped Like... A Lentil?

by scumbaganarchy



Category: Blackadder, The Dangerous Brothers - Mayall & Edmondson, The Young Ones (TV 1982)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Christmas, Christmas Dinner, Gen, Gift Fic, Secret Santa, do NOT trust the dangerous brothers, just cook your turkey or vegetarian equivalent yourself guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:40:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27830143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scumbaganarchy/pseuds/scumbaganarchy
Summary: A Christmas turkey is burning... but Neil's a vegetarian!My Scumbag Secret Santa for the lovely ColourShot! <3
Comments: 3
Kudos: 2





	A Turnip Shaped Like... A Lentil?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ColourShot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColourShot/gifts).



> Merry bloody Christmas, scumbags! And especially Merry Christmas to ColourShot, who I was given in the Scumbag Secret Santa draw (an event organised by the wonderful xWastedIntellectual_13 - thank you <3).
> 
> This is... kinda surreal? A bit weird? I don't know. I hope you enjoy this fic just the same!

“I didn’t realise we had, like, this whole other kitchen hidden in the cellar, guys… guys?”

Oddly, Rick nor Vyvyan nor Mike seemed to be making any noise. Somewhere in Neil’s brain, he thought this peculiar, especially considering what a racket the first two were prone to making and the fact that he was _sure_ they had all followed him down here to find the old Christmas tree. Hadn’t they? Had Neil taken a wrong turning? He hadn’t been aware that their cellar was big enough to make a wrong turning in.

Frankly, he didn’t recognise this part of the house. As Neil had mentioned, he didn’t remember there being another kitchen besides the one he spent every day slaving away in. The corridor he was currently in possessed only a single, white door marked “kitchen” and was definitely new to him. Neil was quite sure he had never been down here before because this corridor didn’t really fit with the house he knew – not only was it ever so slightly fancy-looking, it was _clean_! Like, really, _really_ clean! Well, clean barring one thing. As far as Neil could tell, that thing was smoke.

Not a seriously dangerous amount of smoke, not yet – although that could have been because its only means of escaping the other kitchen was through the bottom of the door – but there was enough for Neil to know that things were about to get really uncool really fast. And on Christmas day, too.

“Oh, wow…” he moaned to himself, “Maybe I should try and, like, _do something…_ but then I’ll only be blamed when it doesn’t work because nothing I try ever works _ever_ because the universe really hates me… and even if I don’t try and help and pretend, like, nothing is happening, I’ll probably still get the blame because I always get blamed for everything around here…”

He wittered on with himself, not noticing how the steady stream of smoke emanating from the bottom of the kitchen door was gradually increasing in volume and darkening in colour.

“-and, anyway, what do people expect when they try and cook a living being on a holiday designed to oppress the winter solstice – that’s just so much bad karma-”

All of a sudden, the door slammed open and Neil was engulfed in a thick, black smog. He barely flinched. Two figures appeared in the doorway, both covered in sooty grime and sweating quite profusely. It was hard to tell beneath the damage but it appeared that the chefs hats on their heads had once been white and their blazers, shirts and trousers once purple. The duo coughed all over him, as if they hadn’t breathed clean air for a year.

“ _Excuse me_ , would you stop moping so loudly, you _bloody_ _hippie!?_ ” the first – and _sweatiest_ – of the two snapped at him peevishly.

His face twisted downwards in a ghoulish sneer as he spoke and it reminded Neil, for some strange reason, of Rick.

“Yeah, _hippie!_ ” the second reiterated at double the volume – this did make Neil flinch.

“We’re trying to cook a turkey!”

“Cook a turkey!”

“And it’s very, _very_ stressful!”

“There is lots of stress!”

“So would you _piss off_ and let us finish!? You can eat it when it’s ready!”

They seemed to be working themselves into quite a state as they ranted at him and Neil had to wonder if they knew the first thing about cooking at all. Behind them, the kitchen was a royal mess: the surfaces were coated with smoke, as were the walls; the oven was as black as was physically possible and _somehow_ … the stove was on fire. Most alarmingly, however – especially to Neil’s sensitivities – was the unrelenting repugnant stench of burning turkey.

Wincing, he pinched his nose between two fingers.

“No, no, you’ve got it, like, all wrong - I don’t want your turkey, man,” Neil told them earnestly, “I’m a _vegetarian!_ ”

 _“WHAT!?”_ the duo screamed.

For a few seconds, Neil was scared they were about to beat him up – they just looked _so_ frustrated and angry and… deflated? This was all getting seriously confusing.

“Who even are you?” he questioned as gently as he could, “I’ve never seen either of you around the house before.”

With a heavy sigh, the first one spread his arms theatrically, revealing exactly how _blackened_ his entire getup had become. He sniffed through another sneer.

“Good evening, hippie – we are the Dangerous Brothers….” he announced, subdued. The other hadn’t reacted to this and was eyeing up Neil rather curiously. The first one flicked his forehead. “Ahem, _we are the Dangerous Brothers_ ,” he reiterated firmly.

“Oh, yes!” the second quickly caught up, “Dangerous Brothers…”

“I am Richard Dangerous,” the first revealed, pointing to himself, “And this is Sir Adrian Dangerous.” He gestured vaguely at his companion.

“Hello,” Sir Adrian Dangerous greeted with a rather pathetic wave.

Neil was still very confused.

“That’s all very well and groovy, guys – well, it’s not really groovy, I suppose, there’s nothing groovy about danger – but I still, like, don’t get why you’re here,” he told them, his face creasing naturally into its usual frown.

Richard Dangerous rolled his eyes and rubbed at his forehead, which only served to mix the grime and his sweat together further.

“Because, _hippie_ , we’re cooking a turkey!”

Sir Adrian Dangerous squawked.

Neil shook his head. “But I just told you I’m a vegetarian!”

“Yes, yes – but the little man didn’t tell us that!” Richard Dangerous protested.

“Little man?” Neil repeated. Could they have meant Mike?

“ _Yes!_ ” both of them groaned, exasperated.

“The little man who smelled like… _doggy doo_ ….” Sir Adrian Dangerous recounted with a slight frown, “But it seems that he was lying to us!”

“Hey – don’t cry, don’t cry… not in front of the hippie…”

“I’m not crying! It’s just all this bloody smoke!”

A little man who smelled like doggy doo? That certainly wasn’t Mike; Mike always made sure he reeked of chemist store bought aftershave. None of this was making the slightest bit of sense… maybe Neil ought to leave before the Dangerous Brothers’ newfound depression turned to something more, well, _dangerous_ …

“Did you mean me?”

Neil jumped at the unexpected fourth voice behind him and turned to see someone perhaps even filthier than the deranged chefs: it was indeed a little man. Well, _little_ might have been a bit rude. Short was a nicer adjective. A quick removal of the two fingers over his nose revealed to Neil that this was, without a doubt, the man who smelled like doggy doo.

“Who are you?” Neil asked him, quickly clamping his nose shut again.

“I’m Baldrick, sir,” he revealed casually.

“Yes! Yes! It’s him!” one of the Dangerous Brothers – Neil struggled to differentiate them when he wasn’t looking at them directly – cried out.

“Oh… hello, Baldrick,” Neil greeted, then frowned. “But my name isn’t ‘sir’, right. My name’s Neil.”

Richard Dangerous came stomping around to face Baldrick and pointed an accusatory finger as close to his face as one would dare with someone so smelly. Apparently, his dangerous side had kicked in.

“Why did you tell us to cook a turkey when he’s a vegetarian!?” he demanded.

“Yeah, smelly!” Sir Adrian Dangerous agreed.

Baldrick gazed between them both without much change in facial expression.

“When who’s a vegetarian?” he finally asked, causing the Dangerous Brothers to let out long groans.

“He – him – the _hippie!_ ” Richard Dangerous shouted.

“Sir?”

“No, it’s _Neil_ , man.”

“Where’s Neil?”

_“JUST STOP! EVERYBODY STOP!”_

Three heads instantly snapped in the direction of the second Dangerous Brother. _Ouch_. Neil’s eardrums were aching now, which was just his luck. Trust _him_ to meet the only other person in the world with Vyvyan’s voice. Baldrick didn’t appear much affected by the noisy outburst, still staring blankly. Richard Dangerous, on the other hand…

“Oh? Feeling suddenly frisky, are we, Sir Adrian?” he asked him in a rather oily tone. He raised a soot covered eyebrow.

“Yes, actually!” Sir Adrian Dangerous replied, only slightly more quietly, “I’m sick of us doing things and nobody appreciating them!”

Richard Dangerous returned to his side and poked him in the eye. Surprisingly, the action only had him blinking in mild discomfort as Richard Dangerous grabbed his blazer to wipe his finger. This was pretty pointless, Neil mused, seeing as his finger came away from the blazer dirtier than before it had touched it.

“Well, stop it!” Richard Dangerous snapped, “If anyone should be sick of things ‘round here, it should be me! I’m the one with the brain!”

“But what are we going to cook now?” Sir Adrian Dangerous whined, “It’s Christmas day, Richard – we have to cook _something_ or they’ll all laugh at us!”

This notion did _finally_ seem to make both Dangerous Brothers nervous. Richard Dangerous looked like he had just started sweating again.

“Who’ll laugh at you, man?” Neil asked them, because he was totally not okay with hassling of any kind.

“Them!” Sir Adrian Dangerous wailed, pointing at the fourth wall.

“The people inside the camera!” Richard Dangerous clarified.

The Dangerous Brothers both gave him a pointed look and Neil’s eyes bulged momentarily.

“Oh, yeah! Oh, _those_ people….” He laughed awkwardly. “Well, you’d better make something then, like, really quickly.”

“But what!?” Sir Adrian Dangerous squeaked.

The situation was about to devolve into worried rantings and probably some violence when Baldrick cleared his throat.

“What!?”

“WHAT!?”

“Like, spill the beans, man.”

A smile many might called misplaced spread across Baldrick’s grimy face. He stepped towards the other three and they all took one step back.

_“I have a cunning plan.”_

***

Sometime later on – Neil couldn’t say _when_ because he didn’t really remember how he’d gotten back upstairs in the first place – the young ones all had Christmas dinner. The four of them had expected it to be another round of lentils, like every other day of the year. In fact, that was what Neil knew he had started making earlier that morning. Quite inexplicable then were the four bowls of turnip stew sat steaming away on the kitchen table.

It was probably a little bad of him but Neil let the others believe that it was his work. After all, whilst a lot of Vyvyan’s bowl did end up covering half the house as he pursued Rick, not one of them complained about the meal. Not even once.

**Author's Note:**

> I really like writing the Dangerous Brothers for some reason. XD Hope I didn't mess up their or anyone else's characterisation too badly - although I've loved Blackadder since I was 12, I've not actually written anything for it fic wise... *yet*.
> 
> Have a good Christmas, you bastards! Especially if your name is ColourShot! :D
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
